Known as Will to family and Bill to friends in town, William Brown Foster was born in the village of Athens, son of Hull Foster and the latter's second wife Maria Brown.

In a small town surrounded by relatives, he was schooled in town but Hull often traded or bought new properties and part of his youth was spent on farms south of Athens.

He was a printer for the Athens paper in his late teens, and west west with the Athens band of '49ers. Later he would travel west again to help some Athenians, particularly his double cousin Maria (Foster) Brown & husband Austin, obtain property and settle in when they went to Iowa. This chapter is covered in "Maria Brown's Hundred Years."

In 1857 Will married Zimrode B Carter, and they set up housekeeping on her father's farm, as Mr. Carter was elderly and in poor health. The Carter farm was south of Chauncey and the brick home built by Harley still stands.

The Plains was still called Wolf's Plains, and for good reasons, as the rough country around the overgrown canal works still harbored some of the last Ohio wolves. One night Zimrode rescued her husband, late coming from the fields after dark, when she heard the wolves. She brought a torch and found him encircled.

Will bought out the previous livery stables in Athens in 1858. After Mr. Carter died in 1862 and the farm was sold off, the family spent many years on a farm in Knox township, Vinton county. This property is now a Boy Scout camp.

Family stories say William intended to serve the Union in the Civil War, but broke his leg being thrown from a horse on muster day.

The family returned in the late 1870s to Athens, where Will continued to run the livery stables. They bought his grandfather Zadoc's large former home to finish raising their ten children and lived there until they were grown.

They stayed in Athens the rest of their lives, forty-six years together, and at the last were laid to rest in the new Union Street cemetery.